It has long been recognized that in public places, stores one example, a small child will often wander away from its mother while she is otherwise busily engaged. Usually, of course, the child is soon found but the potential for serious consequences is such that tethering a child to its mother when in places where it is unsafe for a small child to be unattended has been proposed. While the person so attending the child is usually its mother, such a person may be, of course, another responsible adult (a term which is used throughout the specification and claims to also include any person old enough to have the care of a child entrusted thereto).
Proposals to eliminate the possibility of a child becoming lost in a crowd or straying into a dangerous place have been directed to harnesses or tethers for connecting a child to an adult in a manner permitting the child to walk freely but close to the adult.
The tethers of which I am aware have included an adjustable belt-like unit to encircle the wrist or arm of a child and detachably attached to a member of wanted length which, in one instance, see U.S. Pat. No. 3,104,650, terminated in a loop to be held by a hand of the adult accompanying the child but in other cases was detachably attached to a belt-like adjustable unit to encircle the wrist or arm of that person.